"Most Americans will probably take his criticisms with a grain of salt considering he also challenged Ronald Reagan’s strategy for the Cold War, and history has since proven him wrong," said RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

When it comes to what other countries and their voters think about America, it’s open season on any administration. As far as the preemptive war doctrine, no state should go without, but what state would advertise it? I hope the Democrats’ next assault on the Bush administration is better devised.

What is unusual is Carter’s blunt language. As Carter notes, past administration (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton) all seemed to share roughly the same basic values in American foreign policy, even if they differed on actual details. The Bush administration veered the U.S. in a different direction. You can also see the same pattern of taking the U.S. on a non-traditional course in the Bush administration’s attitude towards civil liberties, the role of Congress and checks and balances, and a host of other matters. It has not been your granddaddy’s, your daddy’s — or even George W. Bush’s daddy’s — Republican administration.

But most of that will get lost because say the name “Jimmy Carter” and some people already think they know where he’s coming from. A flawed President? Yes. An ineffectual administration? Yes. A foreign policy that helped open the doors to some problems the U.S. faces today? Most assuredly, yes. But at least some of what Carter says about U.S. foreign policy and now the Bush administration policy is different has been already stated by others — including some with an R in front of their party registration and highly-raised eyebrows…

Deriding faith-based initiatives is all well and good, too, but coming from Carter, a former president who never hid his own liberal version of religion, is a lecture from the wrong source.

Meanwhile, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan just invited Carter to their lonely stretch of heaven.